I think that my feelings were summed up best by the character Sydney Fife in the comedy I Love You, Man when he cheered on his best friend at a fencing match, heckling the opponent with the timeless phrase: “Suck it, Gil!!!”

Before I get too gleeful here, I should note that I understand that our place in the wine world, as bloggers, is still small. I’m not too big for my britches just yet. But… the tide is indeed turning, and the flood is indeed coming. Detractors, no matter how well-established, can no longer tell us that the flood is not coming, because the first wave has trickled onto their floor and even their socks are soaking wet…

A recent count has us at about 1,000 wine blogs being published worldwide. Nearly 50% of those are published in English. That’s about as dizzying an array of choices to the average American wine consumer as his or her available wine brand choices, which some estimates have pegged at about 7,000.

Personally, I subscribe to a paltry, tiny percentage of those blogs. Not because only a small percentage are any good; it’s mostly because I’m lazy. In fact, I am constantly amazed at the quality of many of the wine blogs available. But… I’ve got a toddler running around the house, a side career in music, and an IT career. Oh, yeah, sometimes I like to see my wife, too. So time isn’t exactly a luxury at Chateau Dude.

For those of you who are also busy, I’m going to start featuring small pieces on other wine blogs that I follow. The idea is that if you have 5 minutes, I’ll give you five wine blogs that you should check out in those 5 minutes, if only to bookmark and come back to them later when you do have more time.

Hopefully these blogs make it into your RSS reader of choice, if they’re not there already. Just remember to come back to 1WineDude once in awhile, okay?

Sometimes, when a wine lover that I know gets a bit more serious about their quest for wine knowledge and for wine blogging, I get asked questions about how they can monetize their blog, and what type of money the can expect to bring in via their blog. The conversation usually goes something like this:

The Fine Print

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